LinkedIn Premium is LinkedIn’s paid subscription service that provides users with additional features and benefits beyond the free version. Having a LinkedIn Premium account can be very advantageous for promoting your professional brand, expanding your network, finding job opportunities, gaining insights into your industry, and boosting engagement with your content. However, to truly maximize the value of LinkedIn Premium, you need to understand how to use it most effectively.
What does LinkedIn Premium include?
LinkedIn Premium includes several useful upgrades from the free version. Some of the key benefits are:
- See Who’s Viewed Your Profile – View the full list of who has checked out your profile recently.
- InMail Messages – Send direct messages to anyone, even if you’re not connected.
- Expanded Search Filters – Filter searches by location, company size, seniority level, and more.
- Profile Branding – Add a background photo and featured section to make your profile stand out.
- Premium Badges – Display badges to highlight your skills, certifications, and endorsements.
- Learning Courses – Access over 16,000 expert-led video courses to build your skills.
- Salary Insights – View estimated salary ranges for different positions.
- Interview Preparation – Get tips and practice for nailing your next interview.
These additional tools can really take your LinkedIn experience to the next level. But to maximize them, you need to use LinkedIn Premium strategically.
Leverage the profile branding features
One of the best ways to enhance your personal brand on LinkedIn is by upgrading your profile’s visual presentation with LinkedIn Premium.
You can make your profile visually stand out by:
- Adding a customizable background photo. This allows you to embed your headshot within an engaging, branded image.
- Displaying Featured and Featured Video sections at the top of your profile to highlight your best content.
- Showcasing media, presentations, photos and documents right within your profile.
- Adding Premium badges to highlight your top skills, certifications, education, volunteer work and other achievements.
These small brand upgrades can go a long way in making your profile engaging and professional. A well-branded profile makes you look like an influencer in your industry, attracting more profile views and connections.
Leverage expanded search capabilities
One highly valuable feature of LinkedIn Premium is gaining access to advanced search filters. This allows you to target your searches by:
- Location – Search by city, state or country.
- Company – Target people who work at specific companies.
- Industry – Search for people in your industry or related ones.
- Seniority – Filter for entry-level, manager, director and executive-level professionals.
- School – Target fellow alumni from your university.
- Skills – Find people by specific skills and expertise.
These advanced filters are extremely helpful for sourcing potential customers, finding job candidates, connecting with influencers in your field, networking at industry events and more. The optimized searching can save you a lot of time versus basic keyword searching.
Expand your network strategically
The expanded network reach enabled by LinkedIn Premium is one of its greatest assets. Premium allows you to:
- Send InMail messages directly to anyone (even if you’re not connected). This is the best way to reach influential people and top talent.
- See the full list of who has viewed your profile recently, enabling you to connect with engaged people.
- Use saved searches to build customized prospect and networking lists.
- Access social and contact insights on VIP profiles through Premium Profile Reports.
But avoid the temptation to use these tools to spam people with connection requests. Instead, personalize your outreach and focus on quality over quantity. Target people you genuinely want to connect with and add value for. Premium gives you greater access – but you still need to network smart.
Promote your content more effectively
LinkedIn Premium also provides features to help you increase engagement with your owned media. You can:
- Analyze content performance – See view counts and demographic data for your articles and posts.
- Boost content – Pay to promote your best-performing updates to a wider audience on LinkedIn.
- Manage multiple LinkedIn pages – Build and maintain Pages for your personal brand, company or organizations.
- Publish long-form articles – Share posts over 1300 words to establish your thought leadership.
These tools allow you to distribute your content farther and gain key insights to create higher quality, higher performing articles and multimedia. But don’t rely solely on passive distribution. Actively participate in LinkedIn groups and engage your networks for the best results.
Conduct advanced Company Research
For sales professionals, marketers and recruiters, LinkedIn Premium offers powerful company research features. You can:
- Access employee demographics – See the breakdown of a company’s staff by department, seniority, location and more.
- Identify key decision makers – Surface the names and profiles of executives, hiring managers and team leaders.
- Monitor companies for trigger events – Get alerts when target accounts post new jobs or have staff changes.
- Browse Company Pages anonymously – View intel on Pages without the company seeing you visited.
These tools provide invaluable intel to prepare for sales calls, close enterprise deals, craft targeted marketing messages and make strategic hiring decisions. The business intelligence can give you a critical competitive advantage.
Find the right jobs faster
For professionals seeking new career opportunities, LinkedIn Premium also offers key job search upgrades:
- See salary ranges – View estimated compensation data for different roles and companies.
- Get alerted to new jobs – Set automated alerts so you never miss a relevant new opening.
- Apply with 1-click – Simplify the job application process by applying in just one click.
- Spot internal contacts – See employees at companies you want to work for that you’re connected to.
- Access interview preparation – Review common questions and practice answers before your next interview.
These features allow you to find ideal openings quicker, understand prospective salaries earlier in the process and put your best foot forward during the interview process. The tools complement rather than replace traditional smart job search practices.
Deepen your subject matter expertise
For professionals looking to build their skills, LinkedIn Premium provides unlimited access to over 16,000 professional video courses through LinkedIn Learning. The platform features training content for business, creative and technology topics.
With LinkedIn Premium, you can:
- Explore expert-led courses – Choose from courses taught by real-world practitioners.
- Learn in-demand skills – Develop knowledge in areas like programming, marketing analytics and more.
- Earn certifications – Get certified through courses to highlight your specialized skills.
- Bookmark courses – Save courses to your account for quick access anytime.
- Download courses – View courses offline when you don’t have internet access.
LinkedIn Learning provides a highly flexible online classroom. Supplement it with online degrees, in-person workshops and hands-on training for a well-rounded skilling approach.
Conclusion
Getting the most from LinkedIn Premium requires putting its enhanced features to work for your specific professional goals. Use the tools strategically to showcase your brand, expand your network, distribute content, conduct research, land jobs and build expertise. Actively engage every feature that aligns with your needs. But also invest time into actively engaging on the platform through posting, networking and joining industry groups. The premium tools complement rather than replace traditional LinkedIn best practices. Use Premium to work smarter – and boost the impact LinkedIn already makes on your career success.
